


Black black black

by Deathtouch



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Creepy, Gen, Spooky, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathtouch/pseuds/Deathtouch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>☛ Halloween fic in which something is watching young Clint in the dark</p><p>
  <i>Oh wait, no. The rain had stopped.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black black black

**Author's Note:**

> god bless my beautiful beta and king of all things, subwaywolf. he did so much to make this fic better. thank you, wolfu.
> 
> also god bless the town of brook park ohio for being the literal shit hole this fic is based off of. (also sorry if you live there.)
> 
> fair warning: this fic is meant to be a little spooky, and a little creepy

It was late January and there was an ice storm due to blow in before the night was up. It was raining - wet, freezing cold, and miserable to stand in. Clint normally wouldn't have left the farm when there was weather like that to contend with, but his brother and father were both drunk and in the kind of mood where Clint knew it was better to clear out. There was nowhere else to go in this ugly town and he had plenty of time to get to the shopping center and back before the freeze came.

Waverly was the saddest place in the world in Clint's opinion, and he'd been to some pretty sad places in his life. There was just something about his home town though; it didn't fit in with the world around it.

The only thing Waverly really had going for it was a shopping center. A shopping center that had been constructed in the late eighties, and it very much still had that feel to it. Not a cool retro vibe, a sad one. Like it was the last thing left of its time. It had been impressive for the first few years it was there, but all in all, it was too far tucked away in desolated farmland to be used and it quickly lost business.

Within the shopping center, there was a nail salon and an AT&T store still open, both of which had bright neon signs out front which flickered at night. The nail salon had weird, sun-faded pictures of women with teased hair and bright outfits showing off perfect sets of vibrant nails in the window. There was a Chinese take-out place with questionable conditions which had to violate some kind of health code stuck awkwardly in there too. Last but not least there was a local sporting goods store called "Wilson's" which Clint frequented on account of the small amount of archery gear they stocked.

The regular cashier was the son of the owner, a guy named Sam who Clint had gone to high school with. They had never had much in common, but Sam was the closest thing to what Clint considered a friend. Sam always asked Clint how his archery competitions went and listened like he genuinely cared.

Clint had caught him crying about his dog once - Sam had found his golden lab mangled on the side of the road and came in to work with red eyes. He got all choked up when asked what was wrong. Clint sat and talked to him about it for a while. Clint had never had a dog himself, but sometimes litters of cats were born on the Barton's farm and he was fond of some of the smarter cows so he knew what it was like to watch an animal he liked go.

Weirdly enough, a dog dying had pretty much solidified their friendship, even if all it consisted of was saying hello to each other when Clint came into the store and making small talk before he left. It was something regular and expected and nice and Clint had all but forgotten about regular human contact outside of his father and brother.

Sam and Clint weren't close enough for Clint to tell him that he thought it was Barney who had run over the dog though.

Barney had taken the car out one night and came pushing it back, with steam curling out from under the hood. It was busted up good and splattered with gore. "Some fucking dog in the road," was his excuse. Clint wasn't sure if the hit had been on purpose or not, and he wasn't about to ask. He felt sorry for the dog, but mostly he was mad at Barney for ruining their car. He had to take the bus everywhere after that.

Every time Clint looked at Sam he thought about telling him... but he never did. Even tonight, he lingered for a second at the cash register. The feeling passed and he kept moving.

He had picked up the supplies he wanted at Wilson's, new things for his bow to make the freeze a little less miserable. The roads might not thaw for a while and if he was going to be stuck at home he wanted some new gear to keep him from going bored out of his mind. Even if it was just something simple like new finish to clean his bow with. Anything would help make the next few days more bearable.

When he was done paying, Clint pulled up his hood to duck out into the rain.

"Hey, Clint." Sam paused. "Man, I'd give you a ride but..." But he lived in the opposite direction and there was no way to make it to the Barton farm and back to his own place in time before the weather was due to turn worse.

Clint smiled in soft understanding. "It's okay." He told Sam, because it was. He understood. He wasn't looking to make Sam's life any harder. "The bus'll be here any minute."

"Be careful, man." Sam nodded.

Clint just smiled and nodded and ducked out of the store. Lucky for him it was only drizzling as he crossed the parking lot and stood under the brand new bus shelter. It stuck out like a sore thumb among all the terrible architecture, decades old.

Clint heard Sam lock up and get in his car. He didn’t want to be weird and watch, so instead he focused on the cloud of white that formed in the air whenever he breathed. He did give Sam's beat up old Buick a wave when it passed by but then quickly jammed his hand back in his pocket because it was too cold to wave at things without gloves.

Clint stood in silence after that, listening to the dripping rain roll off the slanted roof of the shelter and the steady sound of wind blowing across the frozen field in the distance.

Barton got an uneasy feeling in his stomach when he looked over at the field. There wasn't anything special about it. There was a small farm house nestled at the back of the property and a small cluster of thin woods surrounding everything. The woods were desolate and bare on account of it being winter. Sticks of trees stood dark black along an already dark skyline. The more he looked the more odd it felt... His stomach twisted up in funny knots and he turned away instead.

The bus should really be here by now.

Clint looked through the tinted glass of the shelter behind him, glancing over the shopping center. There used to be a consignment shop tucked between two of the stores but it was out of business now. The windows were bare and the inside was empty. Further down, past the AT&T's flickering sign, there was an empty stretch of two stores that had never been turned into anything. They still had their faded "for lease" signs in the window that had been originally put up years back. Beyond that he could barely make out the neon blur and red letters of Bar Louie down the road. Technically it wasn't part of the shopping center, but it was close enough. There was one car parked out front of the bar, but other than that the whole place was empty.

Since it was January, the sun set early, making it feel later than it really was. The cold zapped the energy straight from Clint's bones and he felt tired from the minute he woke up till the minute he went to bed. It felt like it was stretching close to midnight, but really it was only eight PM. All the stores had closed, but the bar was still open... Even if it was empty.

Clint felt so alone there, waiting at the bus stop. More alone than he felt when he was miles from real civilization at the Barton farm. More alone than he had ever felt anywhere else in his entire life.

This place was meant to be full up with people and it just wasn't. It never was. It never would be. It was sad and empty and he felt alone. There was no human life, there was just bright neon lights blinking in the darkness for no one to see. There were no sounds except for the rain...

Oh wait, no. The rain had stopped.

Clint turned back to the road and looked up at the stormy black sky. The dark clouds blotted out the stars and the moon, but Clint didn't see any rain coming down. It was silent without the patter of water. In the distance, Clint thought he heard the feint crooning of an animal coming from the woods or farm house across the field.

A dog. He thought. Maybe.

Clint felt sad for anything that was stuck out in the cold tonight, unable to make it home before the storm hit.

Clint's ears twitched, perking up as he heard another sound. A nameless noise beside him, just to the right of the bus shelter. He wasn't sure he could describe it. Quiet. Soft. Innocuous. He turned his head to look and felt before he saw.

Warmth. He felt warm.

The ground rushed up to meet him and all of a sudden he couldn't breathe. It wasn't just that the air had been knocked out of him. There was a great crushing weight on his chest. His whole body ached from the hit he'd taken and he tried to moan in pain but he couldn't. He tried to suck some air back into his lungs but he couldn't do that either.

Clint tried again and again to breathe and he couldn't. He couldn't.

His ears were ringing from hitting the ground, but there was a buzzing noise too. His brain couldn't quite make sense of what he was hearing.

With his ears and lungs compromised, everything else became sharper. Clint noticed all kinds of things. Black. His fingers felt cold and his face felt cold but his neck was warm. Hot. Stinging hot. Oh god. Black. He was seeing black. His neck was searing, burning. Black. Black. Black. The sky was so dark. He was on his back and he was looking up and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't speak and there was blood filling his mouth. He tasted it and it was warm. His hands were so cold. Black. He thought he saw the moon break through the clouds in the black, black sky. He tried to make a sound and he gurgled on blood instead.

The blackness looming over him shifted. He felt the weight on his chest shift too. He wanted to cough or wheeze. He wanted to breathe. Clint wasn't sure what he noticed first the pitch black eyes reflecting the moonlight or the sharp white teeth, dripping with blood and viscera.

Snarling.

That was the sound he heard buzzing in his ears.

Clint wasn't sure how he could make sense of the sinewy strands and blood soaked skin but he recognized his own throat in the jaws of this great creature. Hot tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down the sides of his face, burning over his cold skin. They rolled towards his ears and into his hair. The animal hurled back its head and howled so loud that the walls of the shelter rattled and cracked. The howling broke through the buzzing of Clint's brain and it was the last thing Clint saw before the blackness all around him swallowed him whole.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading ☽


End file.
